Last week snow, this week rain.  So much rain that there is not only zero snow left anywhere, but some areas now have flooding.  Cold and wet weather means indoor sports only. Like cooking 🙂

In my humble opinion, there’s nothing like a good bowl of soup on a cold rainy day and great broth is the secret to great soup. It’s even better if its bone broth.
Making your own broth is surprisingly easy. You can purchase a ready made rotisserie chicken or make your own.   Roast chicken is usually a paste or rub made with spices and/or herbs and oil and/or butter, and garlic. The rub/paste is put on the skin and under it. Herbs and garlic are usually also stuffed in the chicken cavity.  Sure it has all the good smells and tastes, but can be messy and time-consuming, and it’s always tricky to get moist breast meat.  I have an easy recipe with only a few ingredients which gives you moist breast meat with a light smokey taste.
Preheat oven to 450 F
1 Whole roasting chicken with any giblets removed.  Mine was 6lbs.  Rinse out cavity
3-6 Whole Jalapenos – the amount depends on the size of your chicken. You want to completely fill the cavity with the jalapenos and the lemon. I used 5
1 lemon, cut in 4 equal pieces
4 Tbs of butter, cut up and divided
6 cloves of garlic, diced or put through a garlic press.
Salt and Pepper for the top of the chicken.
And that’s it!
The secret here is that the Jalapenos go in the cavity of the chicken whole. The oils from the jalapenos permeate the chicken helping to keep the breast meat moist and gives it a mellow smokey flavor without adding heat. The heat is in the seeds not the skin.
Wash and stuff the Jalapenos and the quartered lemons in the cavity of the chicken.  Mix the garlic and butter together and divide it in half.  Stuff half the  garlic and butter mixture under the skin of the breast on each side. The skin slides up easily.  Salt and pepper the top of the chicken and put it in a roaster, or a dutch oven (fancy name for really big pot).

Roast the chicken at 450 F for 10-15 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 350 F and cook for 20 minutes per pound or until the thermometer reads 165 F.  Place the thermometer in the inner thigh close to, but not touching, the bone.

After we feasted, I put every last bit in the fridge to make my broth soups the next day.

I made the broth the next day. If you can’t make the broth within a couple of days of purchasing your bones or making your roast, they’ll last in the freezer for months.

FIRST – Cut off as much chicken meat as you can and set the meat aside.

SECOND – Put the entire chicken in a really big pot, (I used the same dutch oven that I roasted it in), or in a slow cooker and fill with filtered water and 2 Tbs of unfiltered apple cider vinegar.  If your pot is on the cook top, simmer on low for 6 hrs before adding anything else to it. If your bones are in a crock pot, you can let it cook for a day or two, until the bones are really soft, before adding anything else to it. When the water has turned a golden color, add what you would add to stock. I added Rosemary, Thyme, garlic, onions, carrots and fennel. If you have produce that’s not sparkling fresh, but hasn’t gone bad, add it. I’ve added ginger root when I’ve had it. You can not taste it in the broth but it does add a nice depth of flavor to the broth.

THIRD – Strain the broth with cheese cloth into glass containers and refrigerate for your soup.  If you’re not going to use it right away strain the broth into freezer safe containers and freeze for 3 months.

I used some of the broth right away to make the Potato Rosemary Soup

And used the rest to make Rosemary Chicken and Rice Soup a few days later.

The recipes for both of these Soups are the first recipes on The Charmed Eats blog page. Just click Charmed Eats (a/k/a Recipes) on the top of this page